That suggests to me that the majority of players of Europa Universalis IV isn't interested in achievements at all. Achievements are a game design element which is somewhat "meta", designed to "gamify" the rest of the game. But the numbers would suggest that at least for three quarters of the players, EU4 is more a simulation than a game. Traditional game elements like winning and achievements aren't important. Probably because they aren't even all that challenging. Although I am a complete noob with "only" 132 hours played, I can turn a small country into a huge blob long before the game ends. I don't think that all that many people play EU4 until 1820, because usually you feel as if you have won centuries before that.

Which means that quite often I don't start a new game of Europa Universalis IV with the plan to win it, but rather with some other goal. For example to explore the game concept of colonization: I played a game with Portugal as traditional colonizer, then another as Brunei to see what happens if a non-traditional nation builds up a colonial empire. I stopped the latter game when it turned out that if you get 5 core provinces in an American region as a European, you get nifty features to found a colony, while you don't get the same if you perform the same action as an Asian nation. EU4 is full of very specific game mechanics that only apply to certain nations in certain situations, and aren't universal. That definitely feels bad sometimes, but it avoids the opposite effect one can observe in Victoria 3, where sometimes it feels as if it doesn't matter what nation you play, as they all play the same.

The most interesting games of EU4 are those where you put some house rules and restrictions on yourself, like not expanding beyond a historical area, or pursuing a very specific goal other than global conquest. I am toying with the idea to continue my series of games as Switzerland in Paradox grand strategy games, not expanding beyond the historical area you get a core claim on early in the game. I might even play that in ironman, and get some more achievements, just for giggles. But it is also true that like most games, EU4 becomes less interesting when you have seen a lot of it, and events start to become repetitive.

And ultimately, that is my main goal and achievement that I had when starting Europa Universalis IV: Become sufficiently familiar with EU4, in order to be able to appreciate EU5 when it comes out soon®.